Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Special Place

We just finished our first go-round with the 8th graders' dramatized scenes in our sim. Some videos will come soon, but I wanted to put up some photos of their stages. They spend a few weeks in charge of these stages, setting up and modifying props, learning to navigate their spaces and execute their blocking. And to different degrees, they become works of art themselves. The Alice In Wonderland scene is the most impressive, of course, but others are thoughtfully laid out and harmoniously composed. I like that you come to have a similar experience on a virtual stage as I imagine you do on a real one. The cast rehearses and pushes together towards the final performance, and when the show is done, everything is taken down and the stage becomes empty and bare, waiting for the next dramatic cycle.